Howdy, friends. Your fearless host is at a bluegrass festival this weekend. I tried to find some info on birds in the part of the country where I will be staying, but instead of Cumberland, Maryland, I found a great … Continue reading The WPT is Groovin’ all Weekend

This week’s bird is the Inaccessible Island rail (IIR), named for the remote chunk of rock it calls home. It is the world’s smallest flightless bird, and for a long time scientists were baffled as to how a bird that … Continue reading The WPT is Theoretically Vulnerable to Cats

I’m having some weird problems with WordPress, with which I have lost patience for the moment. Have a hyacinth macaw and a good weekend! Continue reading The WPT invites WordPress to Bite It

Birds, right?  Lets get into it.  This week’s bird is the bar-headed goose.  This goose spends summers nesting around high altitude lakes in central Asia and migrates in the fall across the Himalayas into India for the winter, where it … Continue reading The WPT is Bar-Headed, Check it and See

Howdy, friends.  Gather ’round and hear about a fluffy little owl.  The morepork, named for its distinct call and enthusiasm for barbeque, is a small owl native to New Zealand.  The most interesting thing I learned about this week’s subject … Continue reading The WPT is Both Fluffy and Deadly

Howdy, folks. Dave here filling in for your friend and mine, Cordyceps. This is going to be a minimal header, but I have a reputation to maintain. Our mid-week mini bird post features the Black-headed tailorbird, native to the southeastern … Continue reading The Wednesday PT Fills In

Hi, friends. This week the weather has been nice in my neighborhood, so I searched birds and spring. I found the following fun stuff. Poems about birds courtesy of the Mecklenburg, NC chapter of the Audubon society: https://tinyurl.com/33fukk7p Tips on … Continue reading The WPT Welcomes Spring

Hi, everyone.  This week’s bird is the red-eared firetail.  This bird is a small, seed-eating finch that lives exclusively in the southwest corner of Australia.  The firetail tends to live in dense undergrowth near rivers, and in gullies and heaths.  … Continue reading The WPT is Discreet and Solitary

Happy weekend, all.  I hope everyone is managing to keep their wits about them in this crazy world we have going on.  The bird this week is the Andean cock-of-the-rock (ACOTR), suggested by mobster hobbit and friend of the PT … Continue reading The WPT Just Wants to Rock

Happy weekend, fellow kids.  This week’s bird is the crested caracara.  It is a large member of the falcon family found throughout central and south America, with recent sightings far north into the US and Canada.  There is a population … Continue reading The WPT is a Glacial Relict

Howdy, politicados, its time for another exciting WPT header.  This week’s little flying razorblade is the eastern screech owl.  This owl is common in north America, from Canada to Mexico and west across the continent to the Rocky Mountains.  It … Continue reading The WPT Hunts Exclusively at Night

Howdy, friends.  Dave is back with a WPT header that involved more than zero effort.  Our bird this week is the horned sungem.  It is a hummingbird which lives in much of central Brazil as well as parts of Bolivia … Continue reading The WPT is a Handsome Jerk

Howdy, folks. I’m back from my trip but still just lazing about the house for a few days and continuing a long, proud tradition of low-effort headers. Please be good to each other and take some time off if you … Continue reading The WPT is still on Leave

Hi all. Your fearless WPT host is on vacation. Please enjoy some new pics of birds I’ve already covered. The header is an Allen’s hummingbird, followed by a Himalayan monal pheasant and the ever-impressive resplendent quetzal. Be good to each … Continue reading The WPT is in Reruns

This week’s bird is the greater roadrunner, another member of the cuckoo family.  It lives in scrubby areas of the US and Mexico, in an ecological region referred to as “Aridoamerica.”  Like last week’s bird it is capable of brief … Continue reading The WPT Makes a Break for It

I picked this week’s bird, the Guira cuckoo, because I assumed it was a brood parasite like the cuckoo last week.  It is not.  Brood parasitism is apparently a characteristic more typical of Old World cuckoos.  The guira cuckoo lives in … Continue reading The WPT gets a Stank Going

Hi, friends.  The word of the day is “echoic,” which is a synonym of onomatopoeic, which means the word sounds like the thing it is describing.  Our bird this week is the Asian koel, whose name is echoic, it is … Continue reading The WPT has No Strong Feelings on Cocoa Puffs

Howdy, friends.  I hope everyone’s week went well.  This week’s bird is the Hildebrandt’s Starling, which is closely related to, you might say “in a superspecies with” the chestnut-bellied starling and Shelly’s starling.  Taken together, the range these birds occupy … Continue reading The WPT Went Nuts with the Bird Photos

Howdy, friends.  Our bird this week is the rock ptarmigan.  I was looking for birds that live in cold climates, on account of the snow day I am enjoying while writing this.  The rock ptarmigan lives in high latitudes in … Continue reading The WPT Wants to Rock

This week’s header was suggested by Moo, thanks @disqus_6nGGCLBk8m:disqus ! Our bird this week is the sword-billed hummingbird (hereafter SBH), and I would be remiss if I didn’t start by saying that this bird’s Latin name, Ensifera means “sword-wielder,” which I think we … Continue reading The WPT Brought a Sword to a Bird Fight

Our subject this week is a the Bohemian Waxwing.  I learned several things about this bird, but the one that stuck out the most to me was the word “altricial.”  Waxwing chicks are born altricial, as opposed to precocial.  Altricial … Continue reading The WPT Does Not Lead to Copulation